


The Monster

by amsch



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Foster Care, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, imaginary violence, open to interpretation whether platonic or not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:55:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4886227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amsch/pseuds/amsch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Crutchie grow up together in the foster care system. written for the Newsies fic/art remix</p><p> </p><p>You think of the System as a monster. The first time you saw the monster, you were nine and it had claws and teeth that you couldn’t outrun, not anymore. It caught you all too easily and ripped you open, devouring the carefree boy you’d been.  Your childhood before you got sick, your grandma before she died: swallowed by the scaly throat of the monster. You were lucky to have escaped. Most kids simply disappeared without a sound once the monster got them: gone gone gone and there’s no one left to care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monster

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The System](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/147115) by Crutcherella Wormwood/smallsisnotonfire. 



You think of the System as a monster. The first time you saw the monster, you were nine and it had claws and teeth that you couldn’t outrun, not anymore. It caught you all too easily and ripped you open, devouring the carefree boy you’d been.  Your childhood before you got sick, your grandma before she died: swallowed by the scaly throat of the monster. You were lucky to have escaped. Most kids simply disappeared without a sound once the monster got them: gone gone gone and there’s no one left to care.

The monster then crudely stitched together a new boy from your remnants and gave him a new name and a government ID number. The jagged seams would fade in time, it told you. But that monster, the one with claws and teeth that devoured, was better than what came after. After that the monster concealed itself in the pitying winces of the prospective families, the snickers and shoves of the kids at school, the endless repetition of, “Too much to handle. Not right for our family at the moment. Of course he’s a sweet boy, but.

But.

But.”

You stopped fighting the monster and played dead, and surprisingly, it worked. The monster started leaving you alone. It reared a new head, the one made of paperwork and exhausted social workers and court dates, but then, it crept back to it’s cave to watch and bide its time. You slowly finished mending the last of your wounds where the monster had torn into your skin, and you felt like you might be okay.

——————————————-

You’re twelve when a boy covered in the gouges and slashes of the monster comes to the group home where you live. He stalks over to his assigned bed, and you can practically see the blood pooling on the floor under his too-big boots.  He carefully pulls out a black notebook from a battered backpack and puts in under his pillow, and then looks around the room for the first time. His fists and his chin declare his anger for all to see but his eyes are defeated. When he finds your eyes and sees you watching him, you ache in the places where the monster hurt you.

He comes to sit next to you later that night, on your windowsill. He’s still wearing his boots, now with Batman pajamas, and you can hear him clomping across the room. You smile out the window.

“What’s out there that’s so interesting?”

“The stars. And there’s a cat that sometimes sleeps in that window over there. I hope it’ll come tonight.”

“I hate cats. How long have you been here for?”

“Three years. It’s not so bad once you get used to it. I don’t mind it here anymore. And they let me have this cactus, see?”

“I don’t like cactuses either. This is my fourth group home. They’re all shitholes.” He glowers at the run-down, crowded room. “What happened to your family?”

“I don’t have any. I have friends, though.” You gesture to your windowsill. “Their names are Mrs. Cat and Mr. Cactus.”

“Those aren’t friends.” He eyes you warily, and sees the laugh you’re holding in. His glower breaks for a second and his mouth twitches.

“Well, it  _would_  be nice to have a friend that answers back when I talk to them. Do you want to be my friend?”

The next day there’s a drawing on your pillow of a laughing freckled boy talking to a cactus and a cat. You proudly tape it above your bed.

—————————————-

From then on, you’re always there when he comes back. You’re the one he comes back to.  You’re the one who sees the sag of defeat on his face when he comes back from another failed placement, before he pulls up the corner of his mouth into a sardonic smile. 

“Guess who’s back?” He says, but the emptiness in his eyes is still there and his voice rings off-key like a sour note.  

When he comes over to the windowsill that night, he tells you about the last family, how he thought it might be the one. He brings out his notebook and shows you the picture he drew of them.

“I stole from the mean dad’s wallet. When the nice dad found out, he said if I promised not to do it again I could stay. They had a dog and a parrot. You would have liked it there.”

“Miss Larken told me what happened.”

“I did it again the next day. I didn’t even feel bad, or anything really. It was so easy. They were too easy, they don’t want someone like me. They deserve better.”

You give him a Look.

“Don’t bother. Miss Larken already chewed me out, said I’m “self-sabotaging” or whatever.”

“Jack-”

“I KNOW, okay? Can we talk about something else? Just talk to me. Please.”

“Of course.”

So you tell him about how the clouds looked like velvet ribbons today and the birds you heard that sounded like geese, and maybe they were flying south for winter, and-

The words aren’t important. What you’re really saying is, “ _Don’t give up. There’s a world out there that the monster can’t touch. Remember that world? You won’t be alone there.”_

The monster is relentless, and it beats Jack back down to the ground every time he manages to drag himself to his knees. You can only watch, terrified that the monster will undo you like it did before, like it does to Jack.  

—————————————–

You and Jack are both 17 now, and you’ve been at the group home so long that it’s only just starting to sink in that you need to start thinking about your futures.  You’ve known the monster for six years now; it’s practically tame. You don’t feel like a stitched-together boy anymore.

Jack, on the other hand, still fights it. He’s broken down and he’s defeated but the monster cracked something deep inside him and you’ve done all you can to mend it. You hope it’s not too late.

It’s another late night sitting on the windowsill - you both have school tomorrow, but the times when you can talk privately are scarce.  

“What are we gonna do, Crutchie?” Jack whispers. “Do you know how many kids age out of the system and just vanish? Homeless, jobless, no family…who are we to think we can do any better?”

“We  _can_ do better than this, Jack. We’re smart and we have each other. We’re family. We are going to make something of ourselves. Be somebody.”

“I don’t know how.”

“We’re going to go to college. I just decided. Hey- you wanna be roommates?”

“We’re already roommates.”

“Nah, not like this.” You look around at the crowded, dilapidated room you call home.  “We’ll have our own place, and we’ll decorate it however we want.”

Jack’s eyes get a little less hollow. He half-smiles and starts sketching in the condensation on the window. “We’ll have plants, and a big window, and paintings on the walls, and…” He trails off.

“Yeah, Jack, our own place. Far away from here.”

Jack leans his forehead against the glass and sighs.

———————————–

Every hero has to defeat their monster. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be a hero, would they? Maybe Jack’s broken on the inside and you’re broken on the outside, but together that made you strong enough to face down the teachers, social workers, tests and forms that tried to tell you your dream couldn’t become a reality. And face them down you did - together. 

The monster changed again the past year. It came out of it’s cave and took up residence in your chest, where it told you, “But you aren’t smart enough. But you aren’t strong enough. But no one even wanted you for their son. But you can’t-.

But.

But.”

This time, you didn’t play dead. You looked the monster in the eye and told it to go fuck itself. And it felt so good to have the dead weight of doubt and fear leave your chest that you broke down and cried for the first time in years. When you signed the papers to officially leave the System, you knew you were the hero of your story.

Now it’s Jack’s turn. Now you know how to help him fight his own monster. You keep him grounded like you always have. The words you’re saying aren’t new, but this time you look him in the eye and tell him directly: “ _Don’t give up. There’s a world out there that the monster can’t touch. Remember that world? You won’t be alone there.”_

And he’s not; and neither are you.


End file.
